WDDTY E-news broadcast - 23 November 2006 No.312

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News content

 

 

 

WEIGHT LOSS: Calories don't count, good food does

FATS: Perhaps they don't cause heart disease after all

DOCTOR ERRORS: Sometimes they don't know their right hand from

their left

 

FLUORIDE: It's bad for your teeth, as the American Dental

Association admits

 

MENINGITIS: Vaccine causes severe neurological disorder

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEIGHT LOSS: Calories don't count, good food does

 

 

The only real way you'll lose weight is by exercising more or eating

less, according to the prevailing calorie theory that maintains

weight loss happens when you burn more energy than you eat.

 

Despite its wide acceptance, it explains just one part of a more

complex picture, as a new study demonstrates.

 

Researchers accepted the standard view that our children are getting

obese because they sit in front of the television or in the

classroom all day.

 

But when they put a group of pre-school children through a series of

exercise programmes for six months, to their surprise none of the

children lost any weight.

 

A group of 545 children from nurseries in Glasgow were either put on

the exercise programme, which consisted of three, 30-minute sessions

every week for 24 weeks together with an education pack that

encouraged more activity in and around the home, or they carried on

with their usual sedentary lives.

 

But there was no difference in weight loss between the two groups.

The puzzled researchers believe that the exercise programme was

perhaps not strenuous enough, but did admit that diet may also play

a part.

 

Now there's a thought - provided, of course, it's one that leaves

out all processed foods.

 

This was demonstrated in a separate study of the Mediterranean diet,

which is rich in fruits, vegetables, cereals and olive oil, and

which avoids processed foods. The researchers found that overweight

people who stuck to the diet were very unlikely to become obese,

while people of standard weight didn't become overweight.

 

So - it's not just how much you eat, it's what you eat that really

counts. So put that in your calorie counter.

 

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2006; 333: 1041-3 (children's

exercise study); Journal of Nutrition, 2006; 136: 2934-8

(Mediterranean diet study)).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FATS: Perhaps they don't cause heart disease after all

 

 

 

Still on the subject of food and weight, a low carbohydrate/high

protein diet - as promulgated by Atkins and others - doesn't cause

heart disease.

 

In fact, people whose diet was rich in protein and fat had a

slightly lower risk of developing heart disease compared with those

who ate more carbohydrates.

 

Admittedly, the researchers weren't specifically testing the Atkins

diet when they conducted the research. But because so many people

were worried about the health risks associated with the

controversial diet, researchers decided to look back through the

records of the nurses' health study, which has been collecting

health data on 82,000 participants since 1980.

 

Of course, this doesn't just put to rest some of the worst fears

surrounding the Atkins diet, it also turns on its head conventional

wisdom about fats and heart disease.

 

(Source: New England Journal of Medicine, 2006; 355: 1991-2002).

 

· STILL CONFUSED about what's good and bad for you? All is

made clear in the WDDTY guide Secrets of Longevity. The best diets

and foods - along with many other life-improving ideas - are

explained in this must-have report that, as always with WDDTY, is

packed with research findings. To order your copy,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOCTOR ERRORS: Sometimes they don't know their right hand from

their left

 

 

 

Do you know your right hand from your left? Of course you do - but

a surprisingly large number of doctors don't. This can be a problem

if you're amputating a leg.

 

Sometimes they get the right and left bit sorted out, but still

carry out the wrong procedure on the patient, or they get the

procedure right, but on a patient who should never had it in the

first place.

 

All of these blunders have a medical name, of sorts, and they're

known by the acronym WSPEs, which stands for 'wrong-side/wrong-site,

wrong-procedure, wrong-patient' adverse events.

 

These mistakes are so basic that you'd think they are rare enough to

be virtually non-existent. You'd be wrong. One study estimates

that between 1,300 and 2,700 WSPEs occur every year in America,

which, at the high end, suggests more than seven a day.

 

Even these estimates may be conservative. Researchers found that

WSPEs are rarely reported - and with the threat of litigation

looming, this is perhaps not so surprising. Instead it is often

left to the newspapers to announce the blunder, having interviewed

the patient, if he has survived, or his relatives.

 

Orthopaedic surgeons and dentists seem to commit the most WSPE

blunders, while the more common errors are to do with the wrong

treatment or wrong procedure.

 

So perhaps more doctors know their right from their left than we

thought.

 

(Source: Archives of Surgery, 2006; 141: 931-9).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FLUORIDE: It's bad for your teeth, as the American Dental

Association admits

 

 

 

Fluoride is bad for your teeth. It's something you probably already

know, but now the august American Dental Association is agreeing

with you.

 

In a recent position paper, it warns mothers against preparing baby

foods with fluoridated water as it may be bad for the development of

babies' teeth.

 

Fluoride can cause fluorosis, a disease that damages the tooth's

enamel, the ADA has announced. Nonetheless, fluoride does protect

against decay, it reminds everyone, a statement that might surprise

most health authorities around Europe who have now abandoned plans

to fluoridate their water supply.

 

Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe that continues to

routinely fluoridate its water, and yet tooth decay continues to

rise. A recent study has revealed that three out of four Irish

children have tooth decay by the time they are 15 years old, while

40 per cent have fluorosis. Health experts blame the problem on the

large number of sugary sweets and drinks that Irish children

consume. Without the fluoride in the water supply, the situation

would be even worse, they say.

 

Which all sounds a bit, well, Irish (sorry).

 

(Sources: American Dental Association position paper 'Interim

Guidance on Fluoride Intake for Infants and Young Children', and

Irishhealth.com).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MENINGITIS: Vaccine causes severe neurological disorder

 

 

 

Medicine is all about risks and benefits, and this comes into stark

focus with the news that the vaccine designed to protect teenagers

against meningitis can cause Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS), a severe

neurological disorder.

 

So far, 15 teenagers and two adults in America have developed GBS

after being given Menactra, the vaccine that protects against

meningococcal disease, a major cause of bacterial meningitis. Five

cases were reported in October 2005 alone. Each person has

recovered or is recovering.

 

America's drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),

can't be sure about the extent of the problem, but estimates the

vaccine is causing 1.25 cases of GBS for every million vaccinations.

 

On the other hand, one in 100,000 adolescents aged between 11 and 19

gets meningitis every year; of these, 10 per cent are fatal and 11

per cent may have permanent disabilities.

 

As we say, it's all about risks and benefits.

 

(Source: The Food and Drug Administration website).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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